There are so many reasons poor people find it difficult to appear in court. A huge, and very easy to imagine, issue is that poor people tend not to have time flexibility; with everyone screaming at them to pick up another job, how could they possibly appear in court as well?
Another very easy to imagine issue is getting healthcare outside of this “town” everyone seems to live in in the above argument, could make appearing in court difficult as well.
The argument that “all poor people are fat and ill” is not just lazy, but outright ridiculous.
If you happen to live in town and that town happens to be where the State put the courthouse for that county.
Plenty of counties in this country are bigger than Rhode Island -- not just in the middle of nowhere, either.
[1] For the record, Palm Beach County, Fl (main city: West Palm Beach) and Broward County, Fl (main city: Ft. Lauderale), respectively.
The bigger problem in this case is that the people being sent to court probably cannot easily walk there, because they are unhealthy.
It’s effectively criminalizing illness.